


'hell hath no fury'

by helenecixous



Category: Happy Valley (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 11:04:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6192574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helenecixous/pseuds/helenecixous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s been nothing but a woman sleeping with a subordinate who was only just half her age, and foolish enough to let herself fall. It’d be nice to blame it on Richard, to call Kirsten a rebound, to try and get rid of the guilt that way, but even before the thought formulates she knows it’s a lie. She had fallen ridiculously hard for a woman who had decided to marry her long term boyfriend, and then died within hours. She’s lost Kirsten in too many ways, she thinks, but really she supposes she never really had her in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'hell hath no fury'

_ “Ooh! Gotta go. Jenson Button’s just streaked past in a white tranny. I think he’s tryna smash the land speed record, bless him. And he’s got a tail light out - I think I might give him a tug.” _

It would’ve been nice, Catherine thinks, her head in her hands, if this was the last thing Kirsten had ever said to her. Nicer still if Kirsten hadn’t said it at all - if Kirsten hadn’t been on Scammonden Road at the same time as the bastards. She stares down at the steaming mug of tea sitting untouched in front of her, and she wants to fling it across the room, only then she’d wake up Ryan. Besides, she can’t really muster enough strength anyway.

 

_ “Okay, well you be careful. And don’t be long, I wanna send everyone home in ten minutes.  _ I  _ wanna go home in ten minutes.” _

(I want to go home in ten minutes - I want to go home because two hours ago you told me that you’re engaged, you’re engaged and you’re marrying him and Christ I want to go home and shower and go to bed.)

 

_ “I think they’ve killed me.” _

Catherine can’t stand to imagine the way Kirsten would have fumbled for the radio, gasping out her last words to her ex(?) lover and boss as though the job was the most important thing to her -  _ It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do, all me life, and I’m shit at it -  _ but she can’t imagine anything else. She can’t hear anything else - Clare asked her hours ago if she wanted food, she remembers, but God, all she can hear over the ringing of her ears and the echo of that fucking beeping is those five words.

 

_ “We’re off for a drink, Sarg, when Kirsten turns up. Y’comin?” _

_ “We’ve got a code zero, Scammonden Road. It’s Kirsten.” _

Of course, by that point, she knew there was something desperately, desperately wrong. She can still taste the iron in her mouth, even hours later. The sun’s almost up, and Catherine’s sure that her heart won’t ever stop pounding. She can feel it in her back, between her shoulder blades, even in her fingers, and she knows that the guilt of not being there, of not getting there in time even if it  _ had  _ been too late, would never, ever let her be.

 

_ “What is it?” _

_ “Sarg? What’s ‘appening?” _

She’ll never be able to forget the way Kirsten looked. She’ll never, ever be able to forget how cold her neck was, how her fingers searched and searched for a pulse and her voice cracked, how she knew as soon as she got out of the car that it was hopeless. Catherine looks down at her fingers, absently inspects the blood that is dry and colouring underneath her fingernails. She doesn’t even bother trying to scrape it off. It’s the only thing she’ll have of Kirsten. And maybe that’s selfish - she knows she would never have been able to stay with her. Kirsten had Ollie, and he made her happy enough, Catherine knows. Only now, she’s going to have to clean out Kirsten’s locker, she’s going to have to return Kirsten’s things to Kirsten’s fiance, and she’s going to have to comfort him as she hands it all over, and lets her love go completely.

She looks up, the kitchen’s bathed in the pale blue light of morning, and she hates it. It isn’t the first time she’s lost somebody - Christ knows losing Becky was hard enough. But this.  _ This _ feels entirely new. It’s like she’s lost Becky all over again, and she knows, she just  _ knows  _ that it was Tommy Lee Royce. She’s half convinced that that pillock exists only to take people away from her. She thinks of Ryan, and Clare, and she shivers.

 

_ “She thought the world of you. You know that, don’t you?” _

_ “Well… I thought a lot about her.” _

The blame game doesn’t surprise her. She’s been playing it herself since Kirsten called for help. She doesn’t remember leaving the house and getting to work, she doesn’t remember parking up, and she doesn’t know where the mug of tea in front of her came from. But it doesn’t come as any shock that Ollie’s here to blame her, it’s one of the things that loved ones do best. So it’s the closest she’ll ever get to letting Ollie know how she feels - felt - about the girl, and she hates the way her heart aches at his admission, as though he knows, as though he absolutely despises her for it.

Catherine knows she should feel guilty, and she hates the way she can’t bring herself to. She resents him. She resents that he’d been there, that he was young, and able to give Kirsten whatever she couldn’t. She resents that he’s young enough to go out and find somebody else - she’s almost fifty. She’s almost fifty and she fell for Kirsten like a bloody teenager.

Ollie leaves, and Catherine stands up and closes the door behind him. She sits back down and before she can stop herself she’s sobbing, shoulders shaking, voice hoarse, the whole deal. She feels sick, and she’s scared that someone will walk in, so she covers her mouth with her hands and forces herself to shut up, to quieten down, tells herself that crying doesn’t ever solve anything. She tells herself that she’s tired, she’s just tired, but she’ll get whoever’s responsible, and that that’s what Kirsten would have wanted.

She goes home later, and she looks like shit. She kicks her shoes off at the door and collapses onto the sofa, just letting herself breathe slowly through her nose. She half chuckles to herself and runs both hands through her hair, shaking her head.  _ I’ve become a cliche,  _ she thinks.  _ ‘ _ _ Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’,  _ who was it who wrote that? Congreve, someone. She’s been nothing but a woman sleeping with a subordinate who was only just half her age, and foolish enough to let herself fall. It’d be nice to blame it on Richard, to call Kirsten a rebound, to try and get rid of the guilt that way, but even before the thought formulates she knows it’s a lie. She had fallen ridiculously hard for a woman who had decided to marry her long term boyfriend, and then died within hours. She’s lost Kirsten in too many ways, she thinks, but really she supposes she never really had her in the first place.

When sleep catches up with her in the early hours of the morning, it’s restless and she wakes up feeling tired and numb and rather like she shouldn’t have tried to sleep at all.

 

Everything at the nick reminds her of Kirsten. Everything at the nick probably reminds everyone else of Kirsten too, but Catherine can’t think about them. She looks across her desk at the empty chair and she remembers the first time Kirsten came in, fresh faced, nervous, charming, a bundle of relentless energy and optimism. And then she remembers the evening they both ended up working late, and Catherine had been cleaning up the mess left when they had finally managed to catch a scrote who had given them the slip more times than she could count. Kirsten had decided to stay to keep Catherine company while she wrapped up the paperwork, and then they’d ended up talking over cups of tea, and then they’d exchanged numbers and Catherine had given her a lift home. And then she remembers Kirsten standing in front of her, her eyes shining with tears as she told Catherine that she thought she was shit at her job. And she remembers how she said nothing, how she’d just let her continue thinking that. She’d let Kirsten believe that she was shit at the thing she loved most, when she should have told her that she had never seen a more passionate, dedicated officer in all of her time there. Fuck - the things she should have said instead of letting her stubborn pride get in the way.

Catherine tells the others that she’s going home early, and she looks tired and pissed off enough that they let her go without raising an eyebrow. She lets herself into her house, grateful that for once there’s nobody there. She had planned to go straight to bed, but instead she decides to run a bath and take advantage of the time alone. Twenty minutes later she’s in the bath, her hair pulled back, a glass of wine in hand, and she lets her thoughts drift.

 

_ “Sarg?” Kirsten asked, knocking on the open door tentatively. She looked like she had bad news, but Catherine smiled and took her glasses off, gesturing the other woman in. She was fairly sure that Kirsten could tell her that the building was on fire, and Catherine would be happy just to hear her voice. _

_ “What’s up?” she asked, her gaze trained on Kirsten as she sat down. _

_ “Nothing- nothing’s  _ up, _ ” Kirsten said, exhaling and giving Catherine a strained smile. “It’s just - I’m just frustrated, you know? I feel like I’ve been trainin’ for this job for ages, and some clown whose father’s some kind of big man in the business thinks he can just waltz in on daddy’s money and expect the position to drop into his lap! An’ I’m kinda scared because I don’t have that kind of- that kind of-” _

_ “Money?” Catherine offered, arching an eyebrow. “No. Not many people do. But you’ve been doing well, really well, in fact. I wouldn’t let the little prick get to you.” _

_ Kirsten seemed to deflate, looking up at Catherine tiredly. “It’s just I’ve wanted this job since I can remember, and I’m so close now. It’d- well, it’d really piss me off to lose it now.” _

_ “The thing is, Kirsten, in this job we need dedication, and brains, and not money an- well, yes, okay, we need money, but we need the people more, yeah?” _

_ “I know, it’s just-” _

_ “Frustrating? Irritating? Infuriating? I know. I know how it can feel but honestly-” she leant forward over the desk. “The people who are gonna be dishing out these jobs aren’t stupid. Well, most of ‘em aren’t. Sometimes.” _

_ Kirsten smiled, in spite of herself, and sighed. “Yeah, I know. You’re right.” Catherine leant back with a grin, and Kirsten rolled her eyes. “Do you always look that smug when you win argument?” _

_ “Well that entirely depends on the topic of debate,” Catherine replied, stretching her arms over her head, and Kirsten found herself watching the way the thin fabric of the shirt stretched over the swell of Catherine’s breasts. She blushed and looked down, missing the small smirk on the older woman’s face. _

 

Catherine pours herself another glass of wine, relaxing for the first time in days. The water shifts as she does and she sighs, content if not for the hot tears spilling down her cheeks, and the burning of her eyes. “Oh, Kirsten,” she breathes, letting her voice crack and her defenses fall, and she puts the wine glass down and lets herself cry.

 

_ “Stay  _ still, _ ” Kirsten panted, straddling the drug dealer who had fallen face down into the grass, and forcing his hands behind his back to place the handcuffs on firmly. “I’m arresting you on suspicion of dealing illegal substances to minors,” she said, standing up and pulling the cussing man to his feet. “You don’t have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention when questioned something you later rely on in court-” she broke off, interrupted, and only raised her voice, “-something you later rely on in court. Anythin’ you do say may be used in evidence, alright? You got that?” _

_ She got back to the nick half an hour later, and she all but strutted in, taking her jacket off as she went. She made a beeline for Catherine’s office and didn’t even bother to knock before she entered and closed the door behind her, turning to face her boss with a triumphant smile on her lips. _

_ “Can I help you?” Catherine asked, looking half way between amused and concerned, as though she couldn’t figure out which way to swing. She rose from her seat and moved towards the younger woman. “Kirsten?” _

_ “Guess who did it?” she asked, her eyes bright. “I got him, Catherine, I got the bastard.” _

_ Catherine stopped, pride and something else making her freeze. “You got him?” she asked, her eyes searching Kirsten for any sign of injury. “I told you- I said you could, di’n’t I?” _

_ Kirsten ignored her, reaching out and dropping her coat to the chair before she closed the distance between them and grabbed Catherine’s hips, tugging her forward and into a kiss. _

_ The surprise was enough to make the sergeant freeze for a moment, and then before she could think properly she was returning the kiss and backing Kirsten against the wall, and Kirsten’s hand was halfway up Catherine’s shirt by the time they broke apart. _

 

“D’you ever think we get to a point in our lives where so much goes wrong you just… feel like that’s it now?” Catherine asks absently, and she sits down on the outside step next to Clare and reaches for a cigarette.

Clare freezes, and turns to look at her sister, frowning. “That kind of talk is what gets you in t’counsellor’s office,” she says. “That worries me, Catherine.”

Catherine shrugs and lights her cigarette, takes a long drag and then stands up, leaning against the doorframe. “First Becky, and then Ryan and Daniel and Richard, and now this?” she asks. “Richard has Ros, and where am I?”

“Listen - I know Kirsten meant a lot t’you,” Clare begins carefully, not sure where she can safely tread, and shakes her head only slightly when Catherine snorts. “But it isn’t your fault, what ‘appened. None of it was.”

“I just can’t do anythin’, can I? Can’t raise me own kids, can’t raise  _ their  _ kids - did you know Ryan thought it’d be a fun and great idea to put glue in a kid’s hair today? I couldn’t keep Becky alive, couldn’t keep Daniel from hatin’ me, couldn’t keep Richard with me, can’t see anyone who isn’t already seein’ someone better. Can’t make them feel good enough and - and  _ loved  _ enough to know that they di’n’t need to prove anything to me.”

“I’m sure she wa’n’t trying to prove anythin’ to you, Catherine,” Clare says softly, and looks up at her sister. “None of what’s ‘appened has been your fault, and you’ve done the best you can with Ryan. He’s lucky to have you, and he knows it.”

“I’m in a job where I’m s’posed to keep people safe, an’ I can’t even keep the people I love safe. I just can’t do it, Clare.”

Clare lets the silence fall for a second, and watches Catherine drop half a cigarette and crush it under her boot. “Did you love her?” she asks quietly, her gaze still trained on the ground. “Only, you’ve never said it before, an’ I didn’t know how far it’d gone-”

But Catherine sees the question coming, and is back in the kitchen and halfway to the stairs before Clare even manages to get it out.

 

_ “I’m sorry, Catherine-”  _

She’s in the bath again, fully immersed in the water.

_ “I was so confused, I didn’t mean it to happen like this-” _

She’s a failure. Her eyes are open, and she’s staring at the distorted view of the ceiling.

_ “Ollie proposed-” _

She pictures the funeral. She wonders what coffin Ollie will choose. She wonders whether he knows that Kirsten wanted to be cremated.

_ “It’s okay, I’ll be here, I’ll be here always. Whenever you need, Kirsten, I promise-” _

She’ll tell Kirsten she loves her, even if she whispers it to the coffin, she will tell her.

_ “I think they’ve killed me-” _

Catherine comes out of the water for air, gasping and pushing her hair back, her mouth open as she gulps down oxygen and splutters, rubbing her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispers to no one. “I’m sorry - God, I’m sorry.” She doesn’t know whether she means it for Kirsten or Becky or Ryan or Clare, but she does. She means it with all her heart. “I’m sorry,” she repeats, tears rolling down her cheeks again. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

 

She’s been quietly considering suicide since Becky died. She doesn’t know how she’d do it, but anything has to be infinitely better than the numbness she’s living in. Sometimes she’s livid, absolutely furious, she wants to hurt Tommy and sometimes the other prick involved, and mostly always herself. She wants to hurt them and she wants to scream at Ryan, scream at his teachers, scream at everyone who looks at her with pity in their eyes because she doesn’t need their pity - she never has. Sometimes she wonders what Kirsten would think of her now, and the bitter part of her is glad the younger woman is not around to see it. On more than one occasion she contemplates overdosing - it seems so easy - but she knows the technicalities. She supposes the thing about being on the force is seeing the nitty gritty day to day truth that gets glossed over and glorified in the media. Depression isn’t waking up early and drinking lots of coffee and feeling sad sometimes, she thinks, bitterly, and she pulls herself out of the water and dries off.

 

The date of the funeral is set for four weeks from now. Catherine acknowledges the information with little more than a nod, and focuses all of her energy and attention on finding Tommy Lee Royce.

 

She stops looking at the photos of Kirsten that flash up on the news, and instead she thinks of Kirsten drinking coffee with her, of Kirsten laughing and holding her, of Kirsten in her bed. Sometimes she’s woken up from a restless sleep by the memory of the incessant beeping of Kirsten’s walkie talkie, sometimes she can’t get to sleep at all. She cries a lot more now. Spends a lot of time thinking about what’s been taken from her. But she understands, she thinks, that she’s needed. Ryan and Clare need her. Halifax needs her. And she isn’t convinced at all that her coworkers are ever going to actually get things done without a few shoves in the right direction.

 

She’ll continue, as she always does, and she’ll heal. She knows it won’t always be this bad, and she knows that sometimes it will be worse. But she thinks of Kirsten and of Becky and of Ryan and Clare, and she knows that she loves them all, and that seems to be enough. For how long, she isn’t sure, but she reckons she likes her chances.

 

Catherine Cawood is many things, but a quitter has never been one of them.


End file.
